The Deck - Stark Knights of the Realm

Plots

At the Gates

City of Sin

City of Soldiers

Retaliation!

Family, Duty, Honor

Fear of Winter

Valar Morghulis

Characters

Hedge Knight x 3

Bolton Refugee x 2

Knight of the Tumblestone x 3

Knight of the Red Fork x 3

Carrion Bird x 2

Riders of the Red Fork x 3

Riverrun Messenger x 1

Trident Reiforcements x 1

Maester Luwin x 2

Ser Jorah Mormont x 2

Catelyn Stark x 1

Robb Stark x 1

Ser Edmure Tully x 1

Brienne of Tarth x 1

Osha x 1

Varys x 1

Old Nan x 1

Hoster Tully x 1

Arya Stark x 1

Maester Vyman x 1

Ser Mandon Moore x 1

The Blackfish x 1

Galbert Glover x 1

Events

The Price of War x 3

Fear Cuts Deeper than Swords x 3

Winter is Coming x 2

Die by the Sword x 1

Attachments

Frozen Solid x 3

Locations

Kingdom of Shadows x 3

Great Keep x 3

Lord Eddards Chambers x 1

Bay of Ice x 2

Karhold Rookery x 2

Reserved for report

Apparently, I can't edit the previous post, so I'll just make another one.

Round 1 - Charlie- Stark Boltons

This game is pretty close for the first few turns. Charlie puts a Dubious Loyalty on my Jorah and creates some pretty awkward situations for me with his Old Nan and abandoned fort. Eventually I get a frozen solid on his Dreadfort and follow with a Valar allowing my agenda + Bay of Ice to bury him in card advantage. A few 3 claim challenges closes the game out quickly.

Round 2 - Tim L - Martell Maesters

Tim leads off with a whole lot of Orphans. I'm not able to challenge in a relevant way for the first 2 turns. It looks like there is an opening turn 3 where I have Retaliation revealed and a Winter is Coming in hand. Tim has 4 chars on board and I feel like I may be able to get back in the game. However, Tim ambushes me with a 3rd Orphan off his pale steel link and I am left having to Valar next turn which Tim hits with Outwit and sends me packing to Frowntown.

Round 3 - Ryan - GJ Clownboat

If you're unfamiliar with clownboat basically what it does is play wildling agendas, Val, and a billion 0 and 1 costed things and just vomits out as many chars as it can every single turn. For the first few turns I focus on winning intrigue challenges to empty Ryan's hand then I City of Soldiers taking a dupe off Val and Valar the next turn leaving her handless and with a Val in dead pile. She is unable to recover and doesn't see a single save all game.

Round 4 - Luke Reed - Martell Summer

Martell summer is a pain in the ass. Even with the mounting number of cards on the restricted list, it continues to adapt and stay relevant. Luke plays a fairly standard version of the deck with the exception of pinch of powders and perhaps Prince's Plan. The prince's plan allows him to Game of Cyvasse and Orphan the crap out of me but I stay on the high claim plan and choose to use my Winter is Comings on intrigue challenges. Eventually, I just run him out of chars and cruise to victory.

Round 5 - Rick - Stark Fatties

Rick is a guy I met at the Gencon Melee. Good play and a good deck leads me to getting my ass kicked pretty hard here. Northern Cavalry and Flankers come out in force and are backed up by a Frozen Outpost and I suddenly can't do a whole lot. I made some pretty bad decisions here by not forcing Rick to go first more often then I did and also by not dealing with Outpost immediately. Rick also has the foresight to immediately frozen my kingdom of shadows and essentially keeps me from being about to play out enough guys to get ahead. Lucky for me, I learn something from this game

Top 8 - Rick Pt 2

A reversal of fortunes here. I have a ton of gold and draw cards like a mad man and force rick to kneel armies by choosing to go second. Rick also ends up not having much gold making for a fairly uneventful game.

Top 4 - Luke Reed

Luke has a terrible set up and my chars are quite good. I knew I could pin him down with fear but I got even luckier when he led off with City of Lies. My Bay of Ice allows him to draw a card but with 2 claim Mil and Int I know I am good position regardless. Luke basically gives up after this turn and his heart isn't really in the rest of the game.

Finals - Tim L

I *really* wanted to play Tim again. Unfortunately, desire really has nothing to do with winning. Tim kicks the crap out of me after I fail to correctly defend first turn after Valaring his entire setup away. Tim's tin link keeps my frozen's in check and his apprentice collar stops me from taking out the relevant maester. Since I no longer have Valar Tim comes out swinging with 2 conclaves and a Southern Mercenaries.

Thanks for the tourney report and grats on making it far with a somewhat outside-the-box Stark build!

Thanks for getting revenge on Luke for me! Also, I feel like Tim Lyons is the Final Boss from Pokemon.

Poor Luke, losing to a couple of scrubs like us :|

I still say he needs to cut the alchemist shops or whatever they are.

___

Well, then Luke needs to make the deck an aggro deck and stop skirting the line between control and aggro. He pretty much was trying to do two things at once with his deck. It generally doesn't work, unless you are playing the Brothers at War Agenda.

I take it the high claim was enough to control the board. And, was Fear Cuts as good as advertised?

finitesquarewell said:

but the alchemist's shop provides 3/4 the justification for playing a pinch of powder, and luke "needs" to play a pinch of powder...

So what provides the other 1/4, his need for self-promotion?

clu said:

Fear cuts basically ate Paper Shields in the Stark mirror matches. It's really in there for Lanni which I saw very little of. The claim was to control the board but often times I would play winter has come during int challenges to assure that I would come out ahead post Valar. If I had it build again I would make the following changes:

Cut Robb, the blackfish, and Galbert Glover from my knights list in favor of 3 Former Champions. Also, I am considering dropping City plots for some combination of Search and Detained, The Minstrel's Muse, Respect of the Old Gods, and Dry Season.

Awesome deck Shives. I played a Stark Knights at CaliCon with a different build (Robb and Jeyne x30 but did not have good results. Maybe Ill tweak the deck a bit and add some Tully action. Thanks for posting!

LaughingTree said:

I think we know why when half your deck is one character..........

Staton said:

Well, then Luke needs to make the deck an aggro deck and stop skirting the line between control and aggro. He pretty much was trying to do two things at once with his deck. It generally doesn't work, unless you are playing the Brothers at War Agenda.

Wha? What was I trying to do in the deck? 'Cuz I"m not really sure... I don't know where you would suggest that it's aggro or rush... the Viper, Darkstar, & the Mercs are renown, and the last is the only thing really in solely to be a finisher (and a 6 STR char for Cyvasse). The Viper and Arianne (arguably an attacker) are there for the GG (and finishing... I did have 3 games go nearly to time), and the 'Shops just make a recurring card (the Blade) more useful... and 4 or 5 STR characters do a much better job winning Cyvasse than 3. Deadly's just there for the gravy.

The Shops generally don't fit into a Martell control deck. And the martell aggro and the martell control deck look alot alike but play pretty differently. I feel like they should've been cut, and then you could cut a Pinch with Power as well. You were over 60 cards and needed to trim some of the non-essential stuff. In my mind that was the shops because they seemed to put more emphasis on an aggressive playstyle. The rest of the deck seem to play somewhat defensively, or maybe reactionary is a better word.

Staton said:

I can understand your point. If I was going to cut the four cards I needed to reach 60 it would have been the 'Shops, aPoP and the 'Sword. Since I'd added them before the MN Regional I don't ever think there's been a time where I was sad to see one. The synergy always seemed nice, and as I mentioned the ability to push through Cyvasse in a mirror match or opposite Lannister has always been money. If there's a downside, it's that the addition of Deadly making me want to go first when I'm generally wanting to go second.

That being said, I'm not sure what differing changes I would make in the main deck (and we should really have this in thread with my deck... I may cross-post). I would certainly adjust the plots, and probably pull both of the City's, preferable for something with 4 gold like Spending and Loyalty.